Saudi Arabia Starts Clamping Down On Encrypted VoIP Services; US And UK Strangely Silent On The Moves

from the awkward dept

Earlier this month, the messaging service Viber was blocked in Saudi Arabia. This was not entirely unexpected, since the authorities had been trying to come to grips with the service and its ability to encrypt messages for a while according to Viber's founder, as a BBC News report explains:

Mr Marco told the BBC that Saudi internet service providers and mobile operators started asking for information about the internal workings of the service a couple of months ago.

"We assumed that the reason they wanted it was to try to figure out ways to tap into our conversations, listen to what our users are saying, read messages," he said.

A few weeks ago, this clear attempt to ensure that citizens in Saudi Arabia could be routinely spied upon when using popular new communication services would doubtless have prompted denunciations from Western countries of these clear threats to privacy and personal freedom. But in the light of the revelations about the large-scale snooping being carried out by the NSA in the US and GCHQ in the UK, that is hardly an option. This shows once more how increasing surveillance in the West gives those in other parts of the world a free pass to do the same.

Saudi Arabia never need any excuses to do that, they actually pretty much did it for the last 30 years and nobody says because the King just ignores others he can and he do utilize the force of the OPEC to his advantage.

Saudi Arabia and some other Middle Eastern countries are the dirty that nobody wants to touch.

They still have some very gruesome public punishments in place.

Human rights are almost nonexistent in the Saudi fiefdom so it is no surprises there.

Detainees, including children, commonly face systematic violations of due process and fair trial rights, including arbitrary arrest and torture and ill-treatment in detention. Saudi judges routinely sentence defendants to thousands of lashes.

Judges can order arrest and detention, including of children, at their discretion. Children can be tried and sentenced as adults if physical signs of puberty exist. The Interior Ministry said it had executed Bandar al-Luhaibi, a child, in October for killing his grandmother.

Authorities rarely inform suspects of the crime with which they are charged, or of supporting evidence. Saudi Arabia has no penal code, so prosecutors and judges largely define criminal offenses at their discretion. Lawyers do not assist suspects during interrogation and face difficulty examining witnesses or presenting evidence at trial.

Are you kidding? Saudis are allies and allies can do no wrong. The only difference between radical elements trying to destabilize political situation and overthrow lawfully elected regime and pro-democracy forces fighting for their freedom against the oppressive regime is whether US is in bed with said regime.
No one would say anything even if there wasn't any ongoing domestic scandal - thou shan't offend the people who control the oil pipe and are friendly. Not friendly people with an oil pipe get bombed into the stone age though.

Re:

The US/UK and most "western" nations have long lost any moral high grounds. They managed to keep running the hypocrisy for a while because their censorship happy behavior wasn't officially exposed before. Now they have to keep their mouths shut.

Monkey see monkey do.

Our own 'democratic' government is on the record as being against the people have secure and private telecommunication.
See: Clipper Chip. So it's no surprise at all that the US is "strangely silent." It's a case of monkey see money do.

it also shows that those western countries who are already doing it are not going to decry others now, but encourage the practice as much as possible. perhaps the whole episode is to stop the people from finding out how their own governments are ripping them off and how their own governments are being paid by big corporations to give them personalized laws!

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